Vernon Davis met with coach Jim Harbaugh last week and said he thought the 49ers could do a better job of getting all their offensive "playmakers" involved.

On Sunday, San Francisco, through all its offensive sputtering, succeeded in getting at least one of those playmakers plenty of action in a 13-8 win over the Bengals.

His name: Vernon Davis.

The Niners' tight end had eight catches for 114 yards and highlighted two second-half scoring drives with catches of 39 and 20 yards.

The 49ers are averaging 213.7 yards a game and have not had a 60-yard rusher. Davis, who accounted for more than 50 percent of the Niners' 226 yards Sunday, had a season-best 39-yard reception that exceeded the previous top performance by any other 49ers receiver for an entire game. Davis' catch and yardage totals were the second-highest of his career.

"I wanted to get everybody involved," Davis said of his meeting with Harbaugh, "all the guys we have that can make plays. Not just me, but everybody. If I said me, it would be selfish. And I'm not a selfish person. But I just play my role. I do whatever I'm asked to do, whether it's protecting, blocking or whatever."

Davis, who expressed surprise at the amount of blocking he did last week against Dallas, actually feigned a block on his biggest play of the game - a play Harbaugh said the Niners had been practicing for three weeks.

Trailing 6-3 with 5:30 left, San Francisco faked a run to the right side to running back Frank Gore on 1st-and-10 from the Bengals' 27-yard line. Davis, lined up on the right side, faked a block and then crept out to the vacated right side of the field as Cincinnati aggressively bit on the run. He was wide open for a 20-yard gain that set up Kendall Hunter's 7-yard go-ahead touchdown run two plays later.

"They were playing overly aggressive," quarterback Alex Smith said. "We had a great play fake, and Vernon did a great job selling it."